Tower Climb a lofty challenge

By Jessica Belasco :
January 25, 2013
: Updated: May 3, 2013 6:42pm

Tony Rodriguez, a captain in the San Antonio Fire Department, will wear full bunker gear as he goes up the steps of the Tower of the Americas during the 28th Tower Climb and Run on Saturday, Feb. 2. The event is a fundraiser for the Lone Star Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Courtesy photo.

Photo By Courtesy

Matt Wright, who has cystic fibrosis, will be participating in the Tower Climb and Run on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2012 to raise money for the Lone Star Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Courtesy photo.

Photo By Courtesy

Air Force Technical Sergeant Jumana S. Rafii, a health and fitness instructor during the 2011 Tower Climb. She says participating in events such as the Tower Climb allows her to get a great workout while raising money and awareness for good causes. She'll again be participating in 2013.

Firefighter Dawn Solinski prepares to climb the Tower of the Americas while carrying Wesley Stanfield, a four-year-old child who is battling cystic fibrosis, during the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation "Climb & Run" at the Tower of the Americas on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011. BILLY CALZADA / gcalzada@express-news.net

Cost: Registration by Jan. 29, $25; $35 on day of event; $50 fundraising minimum per person

Info: cff.org/chapters/lonestar or 210-829-7267

You can call the people who take part in the Tower Climb and Run high achievers.

Participants in the annual event walk or run up 952 steps to the top of the Tower of the Americas. That's a 579-foot vertical climb.

Not tough enough for you? Participants who choose the competitive option complete a one-mile run around the Institute of Texas Cultures before tackling the stairs. (The noncompetitive option doesn't include the run.)

Last year, nearly 1,000 people undertook the climb, the premier fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's local chapter. Here's a look at three climbers:

Matt Wright

“Like breathing through a straw” is how Wright describes living with cystic fibrosis, a chronic disease that causes thick mucus to accumulate in the lungs and digestive tract, leading to life-threatening lung infections. The average life span for adults with cystic fibrosis is 37. Wright is 34.

Despite the lung disease, he has always been an athlete. When he was diagnosed at age 3, his parents signed him up for gymnastics to help him thrive. After 15 years of gymnastics, he did competitive power-lifting for five years, and now he's taken up competitive cycling.

And he's been doing the Tower Climb every year since he was a little kid, only missing events when he's been in the hospital.

“If I can do it, anybody can do it,” says Wright, a network security engineer at Rackspace Hosting.

His lung capacity is just 27 percent. But years of conditioning his body through physical activity — despite shortness of breath, sinus headaches and hospitalizations for treatment — have done his body good, he says.

Rodriguez is among the many firefighters increasing the challenge of the Tower Climb by donning bunker gear — protective clothing and an air tank, about 65 pounds worth of equipment — before mounting the steps.

It's a scenario they might encounter if called to a high-rise building. But at the top of this climb, they don't have to battle a fire.

For the firefighters from the San Antonio, Leon Valley and Alamo Heights fire departments who take part in the climb every year, the event offers a unique physical challenge, a good public relations opportunity and a way to support a charity, Rodriguez says.

They also remember those firefighters who scaled the stairs of the World Trader Center on 9/11.

“Those guys reached the floors in the upper 70s and lower 80s with their full gear,” Rodriguez says. “It's pretty impressive. After that first 20, 25 flights, your legs are just fatigued and numb, and you feel like you're pumping battery acid.”

In bunker gear, he can reach the top of the tower in 15 minutes or less.

“Every time you do it it's kind of a shock to the system,” he says. “It never gets easy. But you can kind of train your body to put up with that nonsense.”

Jumana Rafii

Whenever Air Force Tech. Sgt. Rafii catches a glimpse of the Tower of the Americas, the most recognizable feature of the San Antonio skyline, she experiences a surge of emotion.

“Knowing that I climbed it, it's such an overwhelming feeling of fulfillment,” she says.

Rafii, 34, is a New Orleans native who works in medical logistics at Fort Sam Houston. She's also an exercise fiend and fitness instructor who signed up for the Tower Climb and Run in 2011 because she was looking for a new physical challenge.

She recalls heading to the tower after the one-mile run, sprinting through the crowd of cheering supporters that funneled the runners to the doorway of the tower. Then it was time to speed skyward past her competition.

“Thank God for the handrail,” she says.

In 2011 and 2012, it took her 28 minutes to complete both the run and the climb — “not the best, not the worst,” she says.

Rafii, who does charity work, sees her love of fitness as a way to give back to the community. She teaches Zumba on base and volunteers as a Zumba instructor at community events. Participating in events such as the Tower Climb allows her to get a great workout while raising money and awareness for good causes.